Paleoanthropology - Definition and Overview

Physical anthropology, sometimes called "biological anthropology," studies the mechanisms of biological evolution, genetic inheritance, human adaptability and variation, primatology, primate morphology, and the fossil record of human evolution. See also: Race.

Some of the early branches of physical anthropology, such as early anthropometry, are now rejected as pseudoscience. Metrics such as the cephalic index were used to derive behavioral characteristics. One of the earliest founders of scientific physical anthropology was Paul Pierre Broca.

Renowned paleoanthropologists

• Davidson Black (1884-1934)
• Robert Broom (1866-1951)
• Raymond Dart (1893-1988)
• Eugene Dubois (1858-1940)
• Donald C. Johanson (1943- )
• Louis Leakey (1903-1972)
• Mary Leakey (1913-1996)
• Richard Leakey (1944- )
• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
• Milford H. Wolpoff (1942- )
• Carleton S. Coon (1904-1981)

External links

• American Association of Physical Anthropologists (http://www.physanth.org/)
• Paleoanthropology in the 1990s (http://www.jqjacobs.net/anthro/paleo/index.html)